The Masked Brigands

"We, in Al-Qaida Organization, we announce our responsibility for this sacrificial blessed operation, which was led by 40 Mujahideen, Muhajirin and Ansar, from various Muslim countries, and even from Western Countries."
Mokhtar Belmokhtar, The Masked Brigade

Pride wears a mask. It must say something about human beings who revel at the thought of slaughtering other human beings, whose predations on civilians going about their business, represent targets because they are not of their tribe, their ethnicity, their geography, their religion. They celebrate themselves as warriors of Allah, but mask their faces.

The rogue element of humankind in general do the same. In the West, they are called the 'black bloc'. There is a bleakly sinister component to masking the features of a human face. It is a supremely hostile gesture. The masked one can view the expression and contours of an unmasked face in a confrontation, but the unmasked face, vulnerable to the perceived threat that a mask reveals is at a power disadvantage.

That being said, the intruders at the remote Saharan location of the Algerian BP natural gas plant wore military uniforms. With them was a team of explosive experts, and they were well provided with explosives. Algerian Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal informed the Government of Canada that among the terrorists were two Canadians of Arab descent.

Others among the 40 in military uniform and who were dedicated jihadists, were from Egypt, Mali, Niger, Mauritania and Tunisia, according to the Prime Minister, a veritable concatenation of Islam's finest. Algeria managed to take three of the attackers as prisoners. And will no doubt probe them most gently for answers to many questions that will erupt from a variety of sources.

Canada remains to be convinced that two of the terrorists were Canadians, one of whom was reputed to be in charge of the rampage. There were suggestions that ill-gotten or false Canadian passports were used. Yet official Canada is well aware that embedded within the country are Canadian-born Muslims who have responded enthusiastically to the 'call for action'.

There are several of those distinguished characters languishing in Canadian prisons. And no doubt from their prison cells at every opportunity, praising Islam, and recruiting others in incarceration to the same mission they responded to; the need by divine decree interpreted by helpful mullahs and imams, to sacrifice on behalf of the faith.

The plan to abduct foreign workers from the natural gas installation may or may not have partially succeeded. There are a number of foreign workers whose whereabouts remain unknown. They may have been spirited into Mali, which appears to have been a plan undertaken by an escaping segment of the intruders.

A CSIS report dating from 2012 made note that al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb was successfully widening its influence and "kidnapping foreigners for ransom is (its) most profitable activity, bringing in millions of dollars in revenue".  That same report claims al-Qaida and its outreach groups "continue to pursue the radicalization, recruitment and training of Westerners, including Canadians, through increasingly accessible and sophisticated online propaganda".

Welcome to the future.